Report: iOS 6.1 adoption hits 22 per cent in only 36 hours

After the release of iOS 6.1 earlier this week, new research says the update is being adopted by iPhone and iPad users at a record pace.

Onswipe, developer of mobile touch-enabled website themes, reports that 22 per cent of iOS users have upgraded to iOS 6.1 in the past 36 hours. That's an impressive figure, which we assume was fuelled by Apple's over-the-air update feature that allows users to apply updates without having to plug into a computer. During the first week of iOS 6.0's release last autumn, Onswipe reported 44 per cent of users installed the update.

iOS 6.1 features include extended LTE capabilities to an additional 36 iPhone carriers and 23 additional iPad carriers around the world. It also added a minor update that allows US iPhone to purchase movie tickets using Siri through a service called Fandango.

The faster iOS 6.1 adoption than iOS 6.0 could be a signal that users are becoming more comfortable with the over-the-air update feature that has been in available since iOS 5.0.

To compare, Jelly Bean is still fragmented across the Android ecosystem, with only 10 per cent of users on the OS since its July 2012 release. This may be at the fault of OEMs and carriers, rather than Google.